Elder Care Mediation & Shared Family Decision Making

Elder Care Mediation and Shared Family Decision Making Services

Elder Mediation and Shared Family Decision Making is conducted in order to help seniors and their adult children resolve conflicts regarding such concerns as care-giver issues, living arrangements, financial and estate planning, economics and bill-paying, medical decisions, long term care planning, division of personal property and heirlooms, communication, driving, wills, trusts, and estates; taxes and inheritance; second marriages and step-families, real estate, closely held and family business interests, end-of-life and funeral and burial decisions.

The triggers for this kind of mediation might be the death, imminent death, physical or mental injury, or decline of a parent, or health or safety concerns.

Depending on the issues and the personalities involved, the mediation process typically involves a series of phone and face-to-face meetings. The length of time of each meeting is determined by family members' schedules and preferred pace. The mediator will begin by holding individual phone meetings with each family member, prior to convening and mediating a face-to-face Family Meeting.

Like other kinds of mediation, Elder Mediation is a voluntary, informal, and confidential process. Brooke's goal is to facilitate difficult and emotional family discussions and assist during the negotiation process so that a family can find a mutually acceptable plan for the future while preserving (or perhaps even mending) family relationships.